To find amusement persons have taken the small rectangular wooden pieces of the game of dominos, stood the pieces upright on a narrow end in spaced relationship with one another to form a line of upstanding dominos and then tipped over the first domino in the line, causing the remaining ones to topple in sequence, creating the often referred to "domino effect". That use of dominos illustrates a toppling toy in its simplest form. Recognizing interest in amusement of that kind, more sophisticated forms of toppling toys followed.
Known toppling toys have been formed with one or more base or track sections, as variously termed, each of which is provided with a series of pivotally mounted upright dominos, blocks, flags, chips, figures or tiles, as may be collectively referred to as "tiles", positioned spaced apart on the track so that when one of the tiles of a row of tiles is toppled over, that toppling tile engages an adjacent one, which in turn tips over and engages the tile adjacent to it and so on, seriatim, until the whole row of tiles is moved in succession to a down, off-the-vertical position, with the end of each tile laying in overlapping relationship with an adjacent tile. By extending the base or track, with both curved and straight track sections, and adding additional tiles as appropriate a large number of creative toppling configurations may be made.
The present invention is of the foregoing kind and includes that known relationship. Not only may the track configurations assume different form, but the tiles may differ in size, shape and decoration as well as long as the height and spacial relationship between tiles is such as to properly engage an adjacent tile. As is known the tiles may also contain letters or other decoration so as to reveal a message when toppled and, further, may be other than a rectangular shape. The tiles may also be made of a hard substance so that when one tile tips and strikes the next, an audible sound, such as a click, may be heard, adding further drama to the amusement. A wide range of known variations to the elements are possible in such a toy and, hence, in the improved toppling toy that is the subject of the present invention. Once the tiles are toppled, in order to continue play anew the tiles must necessarily be uprighted. With actual dominoes resetting may take considerable time and careful effort.
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a new toppling toy structure in which individual tiles may be uprighted by the player, quickly and efficiently.
That objective in toppling toys has previously been explored by others from time to time. German Patent no. 548,858 granted Apr. 20, 1932 to Heinrich presents a topping toy having a plurality of toppling blocks pivotally mounted on a thick track like base. Attached to each block is a small flag-like tongue element that extends to the side of the associated block and off of the thick track. When one block is toppled, the remaining blocks topple in succession. As each block topples, the attached tongue element pivots downwardly from a horizontal position to a vertical position, extending downwardly from the pivot axis along the track side and below the tracks upper surface. Because the track is thick the end of the tongue does not however reach to the floor or other surface on which the track rests. The blocks are reset to the upright position by the player passing his hand along and sequentially engaging the now vertically oriented tongues, forcing the tongues to pivot from the vertical position back to the horizonal position, moving the associated connected tile to the upright position. To enhance stability when the blocks are upright, the pivot axis for the block is at one edge. Hence when uprighted the center of gravity of the block is off the pivot axis and the other edge of the block engages the track surface. Heinrich thus offers a convenient and quick acting means to reset the toppled blocks into an upright position.
Although one may conclude that the Heinrich structure operates successfully, that structure contains many pieces to put together a tile assembly; it would appear that such structure is not ideally suited to manufacture by modern plastics molding processes in a manner that minimizes the number of separate pieces and the complications of assembly and, hence the expense of manufacture. An additional object of the present invention, accordingly, is to provide a structure for a toppling toy that is easily manufactured by injection molding plastic fabrication technique and that may be easily packaged with minimal detached parts for easy unpackaging and assembly by the player. A still additional object of the invention is to provide a toppling toy structure that is produced inexpensively by plastic molding processes and in which the tile and resetting mechanism may be formed in a one piece unitary assembly.
The desire for quick resetability of fallen pieces was recognized more recently in U.S. Pat. No. 3,621,601 granted Nov. 23, 1971 to Greenberg et al and in U.S. Pat. No. 4,740,185 granted Apr. 26, 1988 to Inglee.
In Greenberg a structure for a toppling toy pivotally mounts blocks to a track base. The pivot is formed by a pair of spaced tab members that extend on resilient arms from the bottom of the tile; the tabs are squeezed together into a slot opening in the base. Once in the opening and released the members spread apart, essentially latching the tile to the base, with sideways extending tabs preventing withdrawal from the base. The tile is effectively snap locked to the base. In the upright position the tile bottom rests on the surface of the track and prevents the tile from falling backward in the wrong direction. By making the tiles bottom surface or base slightly inclined to the normal, the tile leans backward slightly so that gravity enhances the stability of the tile while in its upright position.
Once the blocks in the Greenberg structure are toppled, they are reset upright by uplifting an end of the track or simply turning the whole track assembly upside down, the snap lock preventing the tiles from dropping off the track. The force of gravity flips the tiles back to an upright position, and the track is thereafter carefully lowered back to a horizontal position, ready for re-use. The Greenberg structure is thus simple and is efficiently reset. As one appreciates in an arrangement in which track sections are mechanically coupled together and complicated forms of sections and curves are included in the track construction it is often not feasible to overturn or even tilt up an end of the track without complicated and/or time consuming effort. Although the present invention also permits resetting the tile positions by tilting the track, an object of the invention is to allow resetting of the tiles to the upright position without lifting or tilting the track section and without overturning the track section.
The Toppling Toy and Construction Set presented in Inglee uses a set of dominoes in which each domino is modified to install conventional pivot pins on each of the left and right hand side that engage corresponding upstanding pivot pin receiving posts, upwardly extending from a track like base. The modified dominoes are inserted into place upright into the corresponding pivot posts. A stop is molded in the track adjacent one side of each domino. The stop engages the bottom side of the associated domino to prevent the domino from pivoting from the upright position to the wrong down side. Each domino in its upright position is tilted slightly backward, perhaps five degrees from the vertical, to lend stability. Once the dominoes are in the down position they are reset by hand or, recognizing the desire to do so quickly; by carefully lifting and tilting the track section backward, as in the prior Greenberg structure, to upright the dominoes, followed by carefully setting the track section down. Although the dominoes in Inglee appear complex to form with the pivots, once formed, the dominoes are easily assembled into place in the track by insertion onto the pivot posts. The dominoes cannot be reversed in position and allowed to fall in the opposite direction as the stop prevents the dominoes from falling in that direction.
Therefore a further object of this invention is to provide in the toppling toy easy and quick raising of the tiles to the upright position without the need to lift and tilt the track and to provide reversibility, to allow for easy assembly of the tile into the track so the tile may be oriented to fall in either direction as selected by the player.
An apparent limit to mechanized resetting of the tiles appears to have been attained by Bakalyar in U.S. Pat. No. 2,289,690 granted July 14, 1942 for a toppling Toy with simulated dominos. The Bakalyar structure discloses a more fully automatic mechanical arrangement. That structure includes a base and pivotally mounted dominoes that achieve the domino effect upon toppling the first tile in the line, causing it to tip into the next adjacent tile and so on until the last tile in the group falls down seriatim. A series of rods or cranks underlie and extend along the bases of the track and are mechanically linked to the dominoes. By manipulating the rods in a direction longitudinal of the track the player resets the dominoes to the upright position. Bakalyar thus recognizes the desire to quickly reset a group of dominoes to the upright position in his mechanical domino set, as does the present invention, and provides a highly complex structure as solution.
An advantage to the present invention is that easy resetability of the tiles is provided without the need for hand grip manipulation of elongated rods and cranks as taught in Bakalyar. Though less mechanized than the Bakalyar structure, the present invention achieves a like result.